Tag: abstinence

A colleague of mine wrote this excellent article published in Psychology Today on this proposed bill.

Utah Declares War On Porn Epidemic

David J. Ley Ph.d.

Utah state Senate resolution that porn is addictive and destructive to marriage

Utah Declares War on Porn Epidemic

Republican State Senator Todd Weiler in Utah has introduced a resolution to the Utah legislature, calling on the State to recognize and oppose the destructive, addictive nature of pornography. Disturbingly, this legislative action is based on hyperbole and morality, ignoring much of what is known about pornography and its effects. Further, the Senator’s resolution relies on pseudoscience in a manner which has no place in governmental action.

The bill suggests that pornography represents a public health crisis, damaging teens’ brains, affecting the state of marriage, increasing rates of rape and sexual violence, and causing a host of other social problems. Weiler calls on the State Government of Utah to engage in education, research and prevention efforts to address this “epidemic.”

It would take far too long to address in entirety, each of the insubstantial claims made by Weiler’s resolution, but a few salient points are clear:

WHEREAS, this early exposure is leading to low self-esteem and body imagedisorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and an increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior;

Weiler suggests that pornography exposure causes low self-esteem in teens, and leads to risky sexual behaviors. In fact, a massive study in the United Kingdom, which reviewed over 40,000 research articles on the effects of porn on teens was unable to substantiate any such effects. A longitudinal study conducted in the Netherlands found that pornography exposure in teens explained less than 1% of the behavior of such teens, including risky sexual behavior. Blaming porn for such problems is a distraction of the worst sort, ignoring the critical issues of education, poverty, family variables and substance use/mental health

WHEREAS, exposure to pornography often serves as childrens’ and youths’ sex education and shapes their sexual templates;

The Weiler resolution suggests that pornography often serves as sex education for teens and children. Here, surprisingly, we agree. Pornography unfortunately IS often a form of sex education for youth, most notably, when they have not received sex education which adequately prepares the youth for the world of modern sexuality. Weiler seems to be indicting the state of Utah’s sex education curriculum. One can only hope that he will thus support greater sex education efforts for youth in Utah. (Utah is currently embroiled in a battle against comprehensive sex education)

WHEREAS, recent research indicates that pornography is potentially biologically
addictive, which means the user requires more novelty, often in the form of more shocking material, in order to be satisfied;
WHEREAS, this biological addiction leads to increasing themes of risky sexual
behaviors, extreme degradation, violence, and child sexual abuse images and child pornography;

SCR 9 suggests that pornography use causes a biological addiction, which leads to desire for more extreme porn, and which causes sexual violence, including sexual abuse of children. Sadly, Weiler appears unaware of the wealth of research demonstrating that increased porn access in societies correlates strongly with a decrease in sexual violence and sexual crimes. Further, Weiler’s promotion of the concept of porn addiction in legislation, furthers psychological damage to the citizens of Utah. Research has shown that belief in porn addiction causes feelings of distress and depression, feelings unrelated to actual porn use.

WHEREAS, pornography use is linked to lessening desire in young men to marry,
dissatisfaction in marriage, and infidelity;
WHEREAS, this link demonstrates that pornography has a detrimental effect on the
family unit;

It’s in the final terms of Weiler’s bill though, where his conservative interests become most clear. Throughout the resolution, it is clear that Weiler believes that it is men who watch porn, and women who are abused by it. There is a pervasive heteronormative tone throughout the resolution, suggesting that Weiler’s main concern is that pornography decreases males’ interest in marrying women and having children. The fact that pornography is often a safe, healthy outlet for women, and for those who are not heterosexual, and live in socially conservative areas such as Utah, seems ignored.

There’s really little new in Weiler’s resolution. The Meese Commission, US Senate hearings by Sam Brownback, etc, have all involved political efforts to deem pornography as a public health issue. Pseudoscience such as sex addiction, or the famous testimony about “erototoxins” often makes an appearance, to support the moral agenda which is truly behind these politics. In Utah, groups such as Fight the New Drug are presenting similar morally-laden pseudoscience in public schools, in place of sexual education.

Utah is, according to numerous reports, one of the states with the highest rates of pornography use in the US. In 2013, Weiler introduced a similar resolution, which was passed by the Utah senate, declaring that pornography was a “gateway” behavior which affected teens’ brains. Clearly, Weiler, and the Utah Senate are concerned about what high rates of porn use in their state will do. Perhaps they should instead be wondering what it means, that so many in Utah are unable to express or understand their sexual desires, and turn to pornography as a private outlet. Utah remains committed to abstinence only sexual education, and prohibits teachers from instructing teens about contraception.

The Do’s And Dont’s Of Writing Erotic Fiction

Excerpts from Elissa Wald’s column in LitReactor.

Sex is at the heart of what it means to be human. It’s vitally important to nearly all of us. It’s a driving force in our daily lives (even when we’re celibate), and its mysteries are infinite. So it bewilders me that — as a rule — erotica is seldom taken seriously, either by writers or readers. Intelligent, well-written erotica is a rare, rare thing (and I’ve been looking for it all of my life).

I believe that in order to write well about sex, we have to resist the version of sexuality that’s brandished at us every day by the advertising and fashion industry: most especially the idea that we can only be aroused by superficiality and perfection. How can we make sex — on the page as well as in life — less a performance and more a source of communion? How can we go deeper?

The following are some of my own tips for writing erotic fiction:

1. Respect The Genre. Respect The Reader

Bring the same attention and regard to writing about sex as you would to anything else you’d write. Assume the reader wants — and is capable of appreciating — something beyond a jerk-off vehicle. There’s nothing wrong with getting off — I always hope my readers are getting off on what I write! — but I want to affect people between the ears as much as between the legs.

There’s nothing wrong with getting off – I always hope my readers are getting off on what I write! – but I want to affect people between the ears as much as between the legs.

2. Spare The Rod

The throbbing rod, that is, and all other coy euphemisms for body parts. Please don’t tell me about our hero’s member, or manhood, or hard hot tool or battering ram. Likewise, don’t refer to our heroine’s mound or tunnel or the center of her womanhood.

3. Dispense With Cliches

Don’t say that he pounded her like a jackhammer, or that she lay back, spent. Tell me something I haven’t heard before. Make me think about something that wouldn’t occur to me otherwise.

4. Less Is More

Stay away from blow-by-blow descriptions of sex acts. The mechanics aren’t what’s intriguing. The emotional dynamics between people are intriguing.

Excited to announce the TALK Q&A this month will feature the reality play ‘All the Sex I’ve Ever Had.” Rochelle Lewis, a regular reader at the Salon, was one of the performers during the FringeArts presentation of this play. She has graciously offered to recreate (with most of the cast) this wonderful play.

Doors to Salon open as usual 6:30, play 7-7:45, attendee readings 8pm

Excerpts from the featured article in Philadelphia Weekly:

The sex lives of old folks (senior folks)

A Fringe production tells the true stories of local seniors’ intimate relations.

Rochelle Lewis sat down a few weeks ago to begin reviewing the past four decades worth of her own sexual history. It’s helped the 63-year-old put her finger on some important moments: for instance, that day in 1985 when she met the first sex partner she ever considered a real lover.

“Before then,” she says, “it was just fucking. I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, and there was a lot of sex without context—without content. There was no emotional content, and I don’t think the boys really knew what they were doing.”

Lewis, a Center City resident, is one of half a dozen Philadelphia-area senior citizens who’ll take to the stage this Friday and Saturday in All the Sex I’ve Ever Had, a provocative piece of nonfiction theater revolving around a topic that remains oddly taboo in society today: the intimate lives of folks over 60.

Produced by the Toronto-based performance company Mammalian Diving Reflex as part of the 2013 Fringe Festival, the show is structured almost like a U.N. hearing, with participants sitting before the audience and going through their lives year by year to review the thrills, orgasms and heartaches they’ve endured and enjoyed.

The artistic director behind Mammalian Diving Reflex, Darren O’Donnell, traveled to Philadelphia last month to sit down one at a time with local seniors who were willing to tell their stories onstage. He recorded dozens of hours worth of their reminisces, then sifted through it all to choose the best anecdotes and outlined a show comprising a specific sequence of those stories. “I feel like I’ve fallen into a stream filled with gold,” he says. “It’s so amazing, and it’s so great to hear all of their unique stories.”

The audience will hear from storytellers like Joe, a 63-year-old retired schoolteacher, and Hattie, a 69-year-old retired welfare caseworker. “People are surprisingly sexually active,” O’Donnell says—“both men and women at all ages. At any age, of course, you still have to sift through the normal den of douchebags.”

The participants’ stories represent a remarkable sort of generous honesty that’s unique to older people, the director adds: When it comes to being candid about their private lives, “they understand there’s not much to lose.”“Look, frankly,” Rochelle Lewis says, “all a woman has to do is spread her legs and get fucked. It’s a no-brainer. But to make love to a woman—or, conversely, for a woman to make love to a man—[we] have to learn how to do this.”

A self-described erotic poet who enjoys one-on-one readings of her works—and produces “smut sheets,” 500-word erotic musings—Lewis warmed to the show’s concept quickly. “People in the audience are going to find the stories funny and poignant and compelling and shocking,” she says. “I hope they take away from it the fact that people over the age of 60 are still viable, still vibrant, and, yes, still having sex.”

And yet for all the blunt honesty—despite the fact that senior-citizen sex is at least as delicate a subject in our culture as adolescent sex, if not more so—All the Sex I’ve Ever Had ultimately isn’t about the lurid details. “While we use sex as the metronome to keep us on track,” O’Donnell says, “it’s all of the other things about life that are most interesting.”

Indeed, while discussing matters carnal, it doesn’t take Lewis long to segue—just like Sigmund Freud—into talk of family history. “It may be that men have to learn not only physical technique but more,” she says. “I hope [audience members] come away with an understanding that you learn over the entire course of a lifetime: You get better, you get worse, you get better, you get worse, you survive the pain. Chaotic families, dysfunctional families—everyone thinks they come from a dysfunctional family, and I think that’s probably true.”

O’Donnell’s initial inspiration for All the Sex I’ve Ever Had came while he was working with a theater in Oldenberg, Germany, where the city’s residents are more habitually physically active than your typical American: “People there have been riding bicycles their entire lives. So I was seeing women in their 70s on bicycles everywhere—and I started conversations with them.” The German seniors’ forthrightness in discussing their life experiences led O’Donnell to the idea of a show in which older people around the world would share similarly—and his Philadelphia interviewees, like others he’s worked with, proved eager to do just that.

(One cast member in a Singapore production of All the Sex suggested: “The trouble to date men is not worth it, and learning to be a magician is so much more interesting.”)Talk of love and aging soon unearths a cultural contradiction between the two.

I came across my rather musky copy of “Fear of Flying” recently and memories of the read came flooding back to me. It was a permission giver for many women and reinforced my notion that women were as sexual as men, at least I was. Think I’ll read it again, and see how much my response to her words has changed.

Article in The Washington Post ‘Style’ section.

‘Fear of Flying’ author Erica Jong zips along 40 years after dropping her literary bombshell

Sure, you got your stories that deliver your pop-culture one-liners. You got your “Make my day,” or “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,” or your ironic “Vote for Pedro.”

Rarer is the phrase that catches some of the zeitgeist and holds it there, beating and alive, in its tiny little word count. Here resides “Greed is good” from the cash-obsessed late 1980s; “Big Brother,” from the late 1940s fear of totalitarian regimes; and “Catch-22,” from the authorities-are-idiots 1960s. (Note irony to today’s headlines!)

The ZF — that ’70s icon. The guilt-free, pulse-pounding sexual escapade. Man and woman meet, go at it with glee and gusto, then trot back to their careers, marriages, kids, whatever. And the woman — free, liberated, maybe a little sweaty — owes nobody anything, least of all an explanation.

“The [ZF] is absolutely pure,” exults Isadora Wing, the 29-year-old heroine, in one memorable passage. “It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not ‘taking’ and the woman is not ‘giving’ . . . The [ZF] is the purest thing there is.”

It has been 40 years since “Fear” and its glamorous author landed like feminist blonde bombshells on American culture, selling 20 million copies here and abroad. The book mocked the idea that chaste was something smart women had to be, ridiculed the notion that children were the meaning of a woman’s life, and showed, both by narrative and by example, that the turbulent life of the artist was not only for men.

“I was aware I was committing a rebellious act,” Jong says down the line from her New York office, now 72 and still writing up a storm — essays, memoirs, poetry, fiction. “And I was sure no one would ever read it, no one would publish it.”

Is she kidding? Everybody read this. Women. Men. Teenagers, flipping through their mom’s paperback, looking for the dirty parts. John Updike famously reviewed it, comparing it to “Catcher in the Rye”; Henry Miller, who knew about sex in print, said it would make “literary history.”

It did, for there are two commemorative editions out to mark the anniversary, in both hardcover and paperback. The book continues to serve as a 1970s time capsule and, in its satire of the constraints still felt by professional and artistic women, still inspires.

“It was a cultural touchstone in the way that few books ever were, or can be now,” saysJennifer Weiner, whose own “Good in Bed” caused a sexual stir in 2001, and who wrote the introduction for one of the new editions of “Fear.” “If you asked women [of a certain age] about that book, most of them will have a very clear memory of it.”

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, an English professor and director of the American studies program at Stanford University, rates it as a direct descendant of Walt Whitman, in celebrating the body — but, in this telling, a woman’s body.

“It wasn’t unusual to have sex talk in a book,” Fishkin says. “It was unusual to have it in a woman’s head, in a woman’s point of view.”

EBOOK – “SenSexual: A Unique Anthology 2013”

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4 Videos Below-Readings are only recorded at the request of the presenter.

Monica Day performance/reading two poems: The Fifth Year and This is My Body for January 2013 Erotic Literary Salon
M. Dante reading SKIN dedicated to the art and inspiration of Heide Hatry for December 2013 Erotic Literary Salon
Frances' reading,“Go the Fok to Sleep”
Dr. Susana Mayer’s NBC10 interview of “50 Shades of Grey”